Monday, April 18, 2005
From Global Warming to Evolution, the Right Embraces Deconstruction
Chris Mooney has an a feature article "Some Like it Hot" at Mother Jones with evidence that forty right-wing public policy groups funded by ExxonMobil seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the global warming.
Is Red State Rabble alone in seeing a parallel here between right-wing think tanks that use pseudo-science to attack the scientific consensus on global warming and the Discovery Institute's "wedge strategy" to go after evolution?
For years, the right derided deconstruction -- that questioning of traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth -- now it seems they've embraced Derrida fully.
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are causing global average temperatures to rise. Conservative think tanks are trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation campaign employing “reports” designed to look like a counterbalance to peer-reviewed studies, skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism, and events like the AEI luncheon that Crichton addressed. The think tanks provide both intellectual cover for those who reject what the best science currently tells us, and ammunition for conservative policymakers like Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who calls global warming “a hoax.”
Is Red State Rabble alone in seeing a parallel here between right-wing think tanks that use pseudo-science to attack the scientific consensus on global warming and the Discovery Institute's "wedge strategy" to go after evolution?
For years, the right derided deconstruction -- that questioning of traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth -- now it seems they've embraced Derrida fully.
